​When I was creating Treasure Beaches of the Mid-Atlantic, my greatest difficulty was deciding what not to include. After 15 years gathering research, there was so much that was so interesting but just wouldn't fit.

Treasure Legends of the Mid-Atlantic tells those stories I had to leave out - about the pirates that sailed the seas off the Mid-Atlantic Coast in our country's early history, about land pirates called "Moon Cussers" who lured ships to wreck on coastal shoals so they could plunder them, about the shipwrecks that lie beneath the sea just offshore that over time still give up their treasures when storms churn the ocean floor and wash bits and pieces ashore, and the story behind the map.

There is also a key to the unique abbreviations used throughout the map, a photo of my first "treasure" find (the small piece of pottery that inspired the map's and Treasure Legend's border designs), pen and ink drawings of the pirates who terrorized our shores, and drawings I did of two Spanish pieces of eight found on Delaware's famed coin beach. It also includes an article about laws regarding finding such pieces of history on Delaware's coast.

Treasure Legends is the work so many newspapers wrote about that led people to think I'd written a book. I did not. Instead I designed Treasure Legends to visually complement the map and tell the stories in a way that would be displayed by the map and peak interest among people of all ages. Coastal history has always been a major interest of mine as those who have followed my paintings through the years have seen.

Treasure Legends of the Mid-Atlantic is printed on parchment paper to resemble an aged newspaper page. The masthead bears pen and inks of two of the tall ships I initially drew for the map from descriptions given me by regional maritime archeologists. One never made it there.

Each Treasure Legends of the Mid-Altantic is hand embossed with my seal of authenticity and signed by me over the emboss, just like the map.